Waking
by GeminiGemelo
Summary: Waking up early can be difficult, but it is more so when accompanied with the discovery of tragedy. For in a place to the east, where the earth is shrouded by the enigmas of the desert, a vagabond wanders in search of a purpose, a family, and the truth behind the murder of his pride. *OC-centric*
1. Waking

_**A/N: **_

_Yeah, I don't know. That's really all I can say here. I started typing this on a whim Saturday night and finished a few minutes ago. Didn't edit or anything, just kind of let it grow and flow and do its own thing. One of those deals where you start something and then decide to write a bit and have only a vague idea of where or if it'll go on. I decided not to set it as "Complete", just in case - if you ask me, the ending is begging to be continued. Or maybe that's my own mind asking to explore this some more... hmm... It could be a short story or something._

_I decided to share because I thought some of you would enjoy it. :3 So just go on and read. It's not connected with anything else I've written so far, and has no TLK characters (yet), so just go in and take it as it is. Read through the short little chapter. Maybe you'll like it._

_Rated T 'cause of violence, folks... duh. It's not that bad now, but if it goes on it'll be a mote worse. Nothing you haven't seen before if you've read... well, just about everything I've ever written, ever. *shrug*_

* * *

Walking.

He was always walking, always moving somewhere. To where, from where, he didn't know, nor did he care much. It was just what he did. He supposed he should have been sick of it by now, but honestly, why should he care? Whether he lived here, whether he lived there, it was the same difference, the same old cursed routine day after day after dry, hot miserable day. Even if he fell over dead, what would it matter?

Maybe he could have stopped somewhere. Lived comfortably, alone, to spend up to the last of his days. They were numbered, no doubt, as he remembered the faint smell of rotting flesh beginning to trickle by his nose… what was it, two days ago? Perhaps.

Besides, how much longer could he live anyways? They were gone. Every last one of them… all gone, all dead, all six feet under the shifting sands of the dunes with their gory, worm-eaten corpses staring with empty eyes and hollow orbits upwards, towards where the sun would someday uncover their rotting remains once again.

That was the only thing he remembered. The last, haunting screech of his mother as he ran away, the darkness of the desert night enveloping him like a daze. A shadow. He became a part of it, blended into it… and when he naïvely returned the next morning, hoping for the best as his impetuous, sniveling cub self always did, there was nothing there but the horrible smell of death, of the sight of row upon row of brutally slaughtered victims. Old lions he had once presumably known lying, intestines hanging out, screams permanently frozen into their faces and their still, silent bodies. Mothers and cubs lying side by side, some with their heads gnawed off, some with their throats cut from ear to ear. All of them horribly disfigured, mutilated to the point where they could no longer be recognized or identified.

The attackers.

Who were they? Where had they gone?

Alas, after that first shocking moment, of seeing his dear mother on the ground, her jaws agape and blood frothing at the sides of her lips, his memory became very fuzzy indeed. He didn't remember what happened after that. There were only shadows, wisps of memories which his mind had already, with no conscious direction of his own, chosen to blot out. Only the bloodshed remained, as that was probably too vivid for him to ever forget completely.

The next thing he was aware of was that he, the only survivor of a declining pride, was awake, body already half-buried in the sand and his flesh being cooked under the heat of the scorching sun. Yet he was still alive. When so many others had perished, he had lived. How? He didn't know. Why? Also a mystery. After that was merely the wandering, the long hours of vagabond movement under the vast expanses of the desert he had grown up in.

Presumably.

At this point, nothing could be known for certain.

He'd been left for dead, and yet his defiance had ascertained that, indubitably, if there still happened to be life and breath in his meager body, he would take advantage of it. And so he left, wandering the plains, catching meals when he could, hiding by night and hoping that the ravenous, bloodthirsty rogues would not return to finish what they had started. But that could only last so long anyways. His body had been so taxed, so weakened by his endeavor. For he could imagine, as foggy as it was, that his stubborn self had refused to learn to hunt, had refused to learn what was, really, a huntresses' task.

Stupid, selfish cub. So many levels of foolishness. Not learning how to hunt—pah! How that would have helped him now, in this barren wasteland. The only real food was scattered amongst the sparse oases, and spirits knew _those _were practically impossible to find, at least in this locale.

He was older now. Wiser. And he'd always been clever. His lack of memories, his forgetfulness of many of his more advanced skills… it didn't matter that much. He could improvise. Move for a few more days, perhaps have a look at those nasty wounds…

At least night would cover them from his view, even if it didn't ease the pain any. But he hated the nighttime. In some ways it suited him, the solitude, the eerie quiet… but in some ways, it was haunting. The horrible howl of packs of wild dogs, the glimmer and sheen of cold, unfeeling stars which had chosen to turn their backs on him. They didn't pity him, nor his foolishness, nor his plight. It was sad, really, but he was truly all alone. With no knowledge of what a world this truly was other than what he had seen, what was burned into the back of his mind always and forever.

Alone, at night, with the cold and harsh wind beating into his scruffy, patchy coat. The coat which was once a rich, earthen brown but was now half rubbed out, which had chosen to become a pleasant home to about every species of tick that was even possible in this area. Whatever was left was simply too dirty, too twisted and knotted with clumps of blood. Black, dark, sticky clumps which had dried into thick crusts. His head, in particular, often itched with the layers of ooze and the sanguine rivulets dripping past his ears, past the small black tuft of mane that had already nearly withered away…

He must have looked like a mess.

Not that he cared, for this too came under the jurisdiction of the age old adage: 'if a wildfire starts in the savanna, and no one's around to see it, does it give off smoke?' Sure, he probably looked like a mess, but there was no sentient being anywhere around to take note of it, so why should he stop and give two condemned seconds of his worthless time?

No purpose. No reason. Simply walking around, waiting for the day when he would die with anticipation and apprehension which increased with every passing night. His suffering was augmented by the fact that he could not remember. Even in his dying days, he might have drawn comfort from the knowledge of whatever had happened, whatever transpired and how, above all, he had ended up here, surviving. But there was no answer. No memory bubbled to the surface except the rows of dead bodies, snuffed of life, and endless streams of blood and entrails littered like streams of gory confetti across the ground.

He couldn't even remember his name. That said, he found after several hours of talking and pondering to himself that he needed one, or at least some sort of temporary mnemonic to refer to himself as. For the time being, he chose Skauti. Scout. In some ways it was accurate, as that was what his vagabond self was, but for some reason it stuck out in his mind as a suitable name before he'd even thought of any others. It was his first choice, and after going through and using several alternatives—sufferer, imbecile, wretched, obnoxious-cub-who-didn't-know-any-better—he found he kept going back to it. And so it stuck.

By now, as far as he was concerned, it was his permanent name from the past, to the present, and for the future.

Scout. He could almost imagine it—him and his mother, or whoever she was, taking lessons in the sunny days before. Alas, his lithe and athletic body would have been suited for it, and he seemed to be a natural hunter…

A shame, then, that he'd flubbed up so badly. Perhaps he could have been some use somewhere.

The sand continued to blow in what should have been a pleasant breeze, though the small bits of sand blowing across his body were, frankly, quite irritating. Often he had to close and squint his eyes, which were already tired from the long hours of squinting, shielding themselves from the sun as they scanned the horizon for any sort of movement, any sort of water.

Often times he was under the impression that he'd passed certain places before, or had been walking in circles… though with the shifting and transient nature of the sand dunes, there were no earlier tracks of his preserved in the ground and hence no way to know for certain. Nor were there any sorts of landmarks to differentiate between different patches of dry, dusty ground. There were only the ups and downs of the dunes, and the blur of the horizon between stratified layers of dust and sand which covered any clear line of sight and rendered the atmosphere above the edge of the earth invisible.

Yet as he continued, he couldn't help but think—but _feel_—that this place was somehow, in some way, different. And as he continued on, this feeling grew profoundly. Surely, maybe, there must have been _something _different… perhaps another oasis? Or maybe something else entirely…

He stopped in his tracks, the wind beginning to push the seas of shifting sand by his pillar-like paws. The whoosh of the wind continued, but the soft sound of his footsteps had ceased. He couldn't see very well due to the omnipresent sand in the air, even though it was, as always, bright as a burning flame outside. Sight, however, was not what drew him to the conclusion that something was out of the ordinary… rather, it was sound. And as he turned his ears forward, allowing them to gather as much sound as possible—as well as a generous dosage of sand, which was to be expected—he could finally hear the faint tendrils of a low, far-off rumble. A noise which, while no doubt far away, was still divergent from the usual sounds of the desert. Sounds which he was still inherently used to, even if he didn't acutely remember his upbringing in the desiccated, oriental territories which stretched vastly under the sun. No, this was something different.

_Sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh…_

The sound continued, and as he climbed to the peak of the next dune in order to get as good a view as he could, this conclusion was only backed up by his sharp vision. For far off in the distance, at the very highest range of what his naked eye could see, there was a small patch of green.

Well, obviously not small—it looked small from his distance, though clearly it was very large indeed. Far bigger than any oasis he had ever seen, not to mention that, in place of the usual coconut palms and gnarled, measly brush, this place appeared as a verdant, vibrant green, lush and fertile… in addition to the fact that, unlike any other place he had ever recalled seeing in the past week, it didn't have a cloud of dust hanging over it.

"Southern Jungles," he muttered quietly, barely even aware that his own raspy voice had uttered a word. Alas, how he remembered that, he didn't know… but it was the first thought that came to mind. And somewhere he knew he was right: these _were _jungles and they _were_, judging by the position of the sun, which was now quite a ways past its zenith, towards the south. It wasn't like there were a whole lot of other more apt names to describe it.

He needed to get out of this desert. It was sapping his strength, killing him slowly with its hot, parched clime and inhospitable winds and weather. There was only so much sand he could take, and with no pride members or even memories to fall back on, nothing could really help his adolescent self in staying alive, in procuring food and shelter. He was a rogue, on his own… and indeed, for him, wounded and alone and still young, it would have been a better move to head to a wetter, more tropical habitat.

The old him wouldn't have thought of leaving the desert, his homeland. But all his ties to there had been severed, including his memories, his pride members, his sense of belonging... He was a desert lion no longer. Survival was first—the land of his origin, a far second. And so it was that Skauti, the little lost lion roaming through the vast and harsh expanses to the east, came first to leave his home and his identity, becoming, truly, a scout, a trailbreaker, and a vagabond. Where he was going, and what he could do, he didn't know. But he could prepare for what he hoped to find.

After all, home was where his head rested. Nothing more. And in the days to come, his head would rest in a great many places…

* * *

_Skauti's an OC I've had for a while. One or two of you might recognize him. Most of you will not, so just take him as you will._

_I'm frankly a bit nervous about going off in my own direction since I'm so used to using canons (mostly Scar). But I do want to explore a little more, make some of my own characters and experiment a bit with something different. Considering the fact that, if I were to ever publish my own work one day, I would not be able to use TLK characters, I find this reasonable. _

_I know that some fandoms (not so much this one, but others) have a high anti-OC sentiment, and trust me, I get that... there will be canons in here if I continue, since otherwise this wouldn't be fanfiction. And it takes place in the TLK universe, albeit in a time I haven't determined yet. So no worries. Besides, you know I wouldn't torture you with needless stick figure OCs, right?_

_... Right?_

_Ah well, you can answer that question, and tell me what you think, down there in the box. vvvvvvvvvv _

_Until next time, mis gentes. ;)_

_Twin _


	2. Daybreak

_**A/N:**_

_Hey everyone, I'm back. And Skauti's back. Yay, I guess. xP_

_My thanks go to the six reviewers who read through and commented on the last chapter: __**IronicSnap**__, __**Iheartninjago2010**__, __**Emerald dreamer96**__, __**GeminiGemelo'sMom**__, __**yeti1995**__, and __**Night-Waker**__. Hopefully you'll continue to read. :)_

_Some blood again this time. Not much worse than before, but maybe still enough to frighten someone somewhere in the world. xD_

_Did most all of this chapter in about the last hour and a half. It's currently a little after midnight... not quite late but not early. So forgive me any errors... there shouldn't really be any anyways, but if there are, let me know so I can fix it for posterity. x)_

* * *

He woke with a start as the scent of blooming lilies wafted past his nose, a sugary sweet perfume which belied the soft, passive cruelty of the jungle. The forest floor was mostly dark, wet and damp with clumps of moss and the occasional dapples of sunlight and glistening dew drops.

A good thing, then, that he'd slept in the expanses of the trees above, no matter how hard it had been at first for him to scrabble up the spongy, porous surface of the bark with his little claws. It was harder than climbing up rocks, but in the end, he'd been able to manage, pulling himself up at least a few lengths off of the ground.

He'd heard noises. Noises in the jungle that softly passed him their admonitions. The ground was almost pitch-hue and even his cat eyes, glinting with the hard-edged light reflected in them, could not see the twisting maze of branches dexterously woven underneath him. The leaves blotted out the stars and the sky which he, as a desert lion, was so used to. Thus the passage of time went unmarked, with only the cessation of the stiffening sounds to alert him that yes, indeed, dawn would come soon.

Now it was lighter, with sweet scents trailing in the air like smoke. His first week was over, and in a way, it was a miracle that he had survived it. Perhaps, he realized now, he hadn't actually expected to make it so far. At nights he had assiduously cared for his injuries, and none of them had become infected yet. In fact, to his eye, it seemed that the lips of his wounds were slowly beginning to close and heal over the bleeding, sore flesh within.

It would be a long time before they were completely gone, and he doubted he would come off cleanly without any sort of marks on his body. But as for now, he was recovering and he could make full use of his limbs and mental faculties—at least, as far as his powers of thought and reasoning. Those were intact.

His memories, however, were not. He still remembered surprisingly little. His brain had retained no revealing anecdotes, no glimpses into his past life, nothing new except the same old scene. Sometimes he believed that his dreams, more deep and surreal than any he could remember having, held the answer, but most of these he had forgotten by the time he had risen. Those he did hold on to lingered to haunt him, grisly yet vacuous scenes of bloodshed, of himself wrestling and grappling with unseen forces and enemies, of deadly fires surrounding him and attempting to roast him with their wrath. None of them held anything revealing to him, though he still believed in their significance despite himself. He tried to remember them, to keep track of them… but every time he tried to piece his past together, it inevitably fell apart even more under his paws.

It was chaos. Probably the only thing that remained constant was one name. A name whose owner he didn't remember, if indeed it was a name at all. Two syllables which held an unknown significance, a meaning hidden within the depths of its timbre. It's translation from the old tongue was one of a warrior, but to what did that point to? A living, animate being, such as a lion? Or just an idea which he had been burned into the back of his mind?

He didn't know. All he knew was that his mind rung with it, in his dreams and as a background to his waking thoughts. They resonated with the echoes of the word.

_Shujaa._

Its purpose was to haunt, and that it did well. For never could he distinguish just how much of it was relevant, just how much his knowledge and gut instinct could reveal and just how much was locked in mysteries, perhaps forever. It lay in his mind, reeling with possibilities, but never could he place the name.

It was but a piece of the puzzle, and he may never have known just how much it fit with any of the others. Progress had occurred, certainly… but it was just one singular case juxtaposed with the only memory he had. He still felt so isolated, so alienated from his previous life and from all that he had ever known. He didn't stake any confidence in the hopes that he would ever recover himself again, or that his enigmatic word had even meant anything at all.

_CRASH!_

He froze and his breath caught instantly. The nearby tree quickly became his best friend as he flew up it, dark fur blending with the shadows.

_SWISH-swish-swish…_

His eyes narrowed from the darkened canopy. Odd. Very odd. Someone—or something, fairly large—was bursting through the undergrowth, obviously in a panic. Every muscle tightened, every sense was heightened.

"HELP!"

It was a cry… sharp, distinct, with obvious panic in the voice. And it was repeated.

"HELP ME!" Both ears twitched. "IT'S THE DEMONESS!"

Skauti paused with perfect stillness, an uncomfortable feeling creeping into his stomach as he recognized the battered figure of a lioness popping out from the warm greens of a bush. Yet something was not right with this picture. He studied her, sound limbs pressing the bark and his lithe figure crawling farther. Perfect balance held him still overhead, high in the limbs where few dared make refuge.

The lioness was panting, sides heaving with the labor of mere breath. Her eyes were crazed, her mouth alighted with foam which spread from chin to chest in a wild display.

She collapsed. He followed, though with more grace. With an agile roll he fell from the tree and landed on all fours. The lioness showed no surprise, and their eyes met.

That was uncomfortable, for hers were covered in blood like a dark, silhouetted mask.

"Child, _child! _She's coming! Run, now!"

More breath caught in his throat, and his paws worked more from muscle memory than from anything else when they placed pressure on her chest and attempted to staunch the wounds. If he had been taught in medicine during his previous life, it showed. Yet consciously, he still didn't know what to do.

"Alright, calm down, _calm down, damn it!"_

Ironic how he was telling her to be calm, yet he couldn't keep out the panic himself. It wormed its way into his voice, it made his heart race and waned the dexterity of his limbs. Which may as well have been carved from ice.

There was too much blood. It was flowing down her chest, her sides, her back. The face of her was so enraptured in shadowy stickiness, it was a miracle she was alive.

Her limbs shook and twitched with a nervous spasm, sweating pouring from every orifice on the skin. Death throes. She recoiled from his touch, more of the sanguine fluid spewing from her mouth as she let out a rending cough. It covered his paws, his face. And he still couldn't make any sense of what she was so frantically trying to tell him.

"THE DEMONESS! She's coming! RUN! While you stil—"

She was interrupted by another spasm, the whole of her body curling up like a dying animal as she shrieked and twitched. It was what she was—there was no denying. And yet all the while she unsettled him with those sunken, shaking eyes, still bright and wild with sleeplessness. Haunted by a nervous look which would someday give him nightmares.

Her life was slipping away. But her sanity was already gone.

"Who?" He shook himself, jarred and frightened by this encounter despite himself. "_WHO?"_

The urgency was in his voice, for he knew her to be moribund. He had not given up trying to save her, his paws pressing down numbly on a wriggling body which paid him no mind. When she proselytized, it was independent of his stimuli.

"The demoness. She's here." Her glazed eyes stared into space, lit with a fear as though she could see her. Already she had grown frighteningly calm. "Harpy. Eyes red as blood, wire thin, cackling… _and the stripe down her forehead._"

Skauti stiffened, everything pounding and blurry with adrenaline. No doubt... it was a real being. He hoped. She was obviously not in her right mind, she didn't know what she was talking about. Yet he had to get an answer.

"Is she the one who attacked you?" He shook her roughly, aware of possible impending danger. "_Where is she?!"_

She let out a hoarse wheeze, the fear endless in her eyes like a bottomless abyss. She could see and feel the death coming for her.

"No. No, _don't you give me that._" His voice rasped with the infectious terror, his eyes reflecting the macabre sight in his reflective pupils. Saliva dripped from her mouth. Time stood still. He wasn't sure when he'd began pressing on her chest, but his blood-soaked paws were doing just that. Hard. "Tell me, curse you!"

"You'll find out. My child." He went frozen as she gave him the smallest hint of a chuckle, lips twisting into a grin that belied the look her narrowed pupils were boring into him.

"No, you can't just _die on me!_" He panicked, his paws still deluded into thinking they could save her. The only feline he had seen since his estrangement from the world. "Tell me what you mean! I'll save you!"

That was denied him. She croaked and wheezed, her stiff body shaking with the effort of her breath. And then, without any further impetus, her lip curled and she grew still, face permanently frozen into a horrified grimace. The eyes still shone, as though with life, and her warm body was staring him down with that grisly countenance.

Instantly he averted his eyes from the victim's stare, legs up to the knee soaked in foreign blood. Inwardly he cursed, more from shock than from anger, and was met with the impending realization that had tried to come to him all along.

If there was something out there strong enough and frightening enough to maul, mangle, and scare a lioness out of her bloody mind, then whether it was real, corporeal, ethereal, or just a blasted figment of her imagination, he had reason to be afraid. Anything that could hurt her like that would make short work of him.

And so he disappeared, as quickly and promptly as he could. The lioness' body still lay out, and already several stark, black crows were gathering to enjoy the feast which no one had bothered to move out of their reach. The jungle was dark, and even in the early morning daylight, it pressed into him from all sides.

Regardless of this so-called beast, he had to escape the jungle. He was no more than a pitiful, wandering vagabond, wounded sorely and without any home. He was young. He was vulnerable, even for all his skill.

He was alone.

Skauti tried to keep his calm, retreating to the upper reaches of the trees until his heart rate could slow to regular speeds and his thoughts could resume a track that at least possessed some semblance of normalcy. Deep breaths filled his lungs, and he even allowed himself a few indulgent moments to close his eyes and shut out the world which lay beneath the pounding of his ears.

It was alright. It was fine. It was a superstition, or at least some delusion.

That was what he told himself, his unsettled mind not daring to point out that _something _nearby had, indeed, wounded the lioness. True, it was probably just a lion, and he was probably just distorted and disfigured by her already-warped imagination… but alas, that was still a threat which he had to look out for.

He couldn't afford to get in a fight… at least, not yet. He had to save his strength. For alas, rest be assured, if he ever found the one who killed his parents… his whirlwind of a temper would have fury enough.

* * *

_SORRY IF I SCARRED ANYONE. But the "demoness" is coming, apparently. Well, sort of. I'm sure you could figure out who she was referring to. As for the deranged lioness, she remains random. I shall posthumously name her "Mambo" (crazy) simply because I feel bad for never giving her a proper burial, name, or character._

_As always, review! I'd love to hear your thoughts now that I'm down here in Nevada. I'm sending you all sunshine, since we have plenty to spare._

_Despedidas con abrazos._

_Twin :)_


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